It was found that many users did not notice the default search settings and thus did not receive the results that they expected. The following default search settings have been changed, which should improve the search results for most users.

The default search scope has been changed to "All support & downloads" from “Within my selected products.”

If a user changes their selection to “Within my selected products,” that will become the default search scope for that user until the selection is changed again.

On the “Downloads,” “Troubleshoot” and “Plan & install” pages, search defaults to search against all tasks rather than within the particular page task.

R8.1:R8.2:

Non-English users will see documents in both their language as well as in English in search results and from“View All" and "More" results links.

Mobile enhancements

On mobile devices, a new “Service information” module will be available for select System x products. The new module will present helpful links to System x resources.

“Service information” can be reached two different ways. (1) Using your mobile device, scan the QR code that is on a System x product. (2) Access the Support Portal's mobile site, select one of the supported products, and select “Service information”.

User context enhancements

In order to present users with the most relevant data, the Support Portal will clear a user's product list whenever the user has not accessed the portal for an extended period of time. For anonymous users (not signed in), the list will be cleared after 2 months of inactivity. For authenticated users (signed in), the list will be cleared after 10 months of inactivity.

A
“Tips” link is now available in the search box to provide users
with tips on creating meaningful search terms. Items such as
“Creating effective search terms, “ and “Refining the results
using filters” are included.

Non-English
users can choose to search English documents after
selecting the “View All" or "More" results links
within modules.

Product
search enhancements

Improvements have been made to provide the most relevant results when searching for
a product with the 'Quick find' or ''Find a product' functions.

R8.0:R8.1:

The
Support Portal recognizes searches for products that have been
recently sold or acquired and provide links to the proper support
site for the product.

Mobile
site updates

A
link to fixes (downloads) is now available on the mobile site.

This
link takes users to the Fix Central site where fixes are
available.

Direct
access from ibm.com/support for additional locales

Previously,
users in the following locales were directed to country specific
support pages when accessing ibm.com/support:

Greece
- Greek

Jordan - English

Kuwait - English

Lebanon - English

Bahrain
– English

Qatar - English

Oman - English

United Arab Emirates -
English

Saudi Arabia - English

South
Africa - English

Hungary
– Hungarian

Romania
– Romanian

Switzerland
– French

Switzerland
– German

Latvia
– Latvian

Lithuania
– Lithuanian

Portugal
– Portuguese

Poland
– Polish

Serbia
– Serbian

Slovakia
– Slovak

Slovenia
– Slovenian

Ukraine
– Ukrainian

Bulgaria
– Bulgarian

Morocco
– French

Tunisia
– French

Algeria
– French

Cyprus
- English

These
users will now be taken directly to the Support Portal when accessing the
technical support site from ibm.com.

General comments: Defects resolved in this release include

418650 - Services Admin module displaying incorrect systems

Known issues:

Document links may be unavailable in modules and in search results for products for which a version has been selected. To obtain additional links and results, please remove any version settings from the products in your product list.

A new “Support
shortcuts” module is available on the “Support home” page
that provides users with quick access to fixes, service requests,
product documentation, problem resolution, and installation and
upgrade information.

Communities
enhancements

A
new “Recent community activity” module replaces the former modules on the “Communities” tab.This
new module presents social media information, including recent
activity from Twitter, blogs and wikis and forums/user groups for the
user's active products.

Product
selection enhancements

Product search automatically
displays matching results after 2 characters are typed into the search
box. Search results are updated as more characters are entered.

Document
tags and ratings

In
previous releases, authenticated users were able to utilize the
social tag feature on a subset of documents. With this release,
authenticated users are able to use social tags on all technical
support documents.

Once signed in, users are able to add a tag to a page. They can also view
the tags that they have created for that page using “My tags” or
to view all the active tags for that page using the “All tags”
link.

Users can
click a tag in the tag cloud or tag list to see a list of pages
tagged with that tag. Users are also able to select “Search
all tags” and enter a tag in the search box to find pages with
that tag. (A semicolon should be used as the delimiter when
searching multiple tags.)

Note: Tags meeting the following criteria will be ignored
a) There is any occurrence of semi-colons, commas, greater-than, less-than, double-quotes, tilde, left and right square brackets or Japanese half-space characters
or
b) The tag starts with a period, colon or back-slash

Similarly, users are nowable to rate all technical support documents.

The average rating is calculated and displayed for each page.

Search
enhancements

Users are able to
filter search results by social tags.

Additional helpful
search tips are provided for searches that return no results.

Note: The search terms
entered in the search box are used to search against the title, URL, keywords and content of all support pages. The search engine does not search other data associated with those pages, like user-supplied tags or document type, that are displayed in the left column filters on the search results page.

Mobile
enhancements

The “My service
requests” feature has been optimized for mobile devices.

New “Notifications”
subscriptions are supported for a subset of products.

For those products not
yet supported for subscription in the mobile interface, users can use for the full site to subscribe.

Direct
access from ibm.com/support for additional locales

Previously, users in the
following locales were directed to country specific support pages
when accessing ibm.com/support:

India - English

Taiwan - Chinese
(Traditional)

Belgium/Luxembourg -
English

Belgium/Luxembourg -
French

Belgium/Luxembourg -
Dutch

Netherlands - Dutch

Singapore - English

Thailand - English

Vietnam - English

Vietnam - Vietnamese

Malaysia - English

Philippines - English

Indonesia - English

Hong Kong - English

Egypt - English

Austria - German

Sweden - Swedish

Finland - Finnish

Norway - Norwegian

Denmark - Danish

Anguilla - English

Antigua and Barbuda -
English

Aruba - English

Bahamas - English

Bangladesh - English

Barbados - English

Grenada - English

Guyana - English

Pakistan - English

Dominica - English

Montserrat - English

Jamaica - English

Trinidad and Tobago -
English

Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines - English

Turks and Caicos Islands
- English

Costa Rica - Spanish

Croatia - Croatian

Czech Republic - Czech

Greece - Greek

Saint Kitts and Nevis -
English

Saint Lucia - English

Netherlands Antilles -
English

Bermuda - English

British Virgin Islands -
English

Cayman Islands - English

Sri Lanka - English

Suriname - English

Chile - Spanish

Colombia - Spanish

Paraguay - Spanish

Peru - Spanish

Mexico - Spanish

Uruguay - Spanish

Venezuela - Spanish

Ecuador - Spanish

Argentina - Spanish

Bolivia - Spanish

These users are now
taken directly to the Support Portal when accessing the technical
support site from ibm.com.

General
Comments:

Enhancement requests
implemented in this release include:

8916/333672 – Make
downloads easier to find

8746/8747/333512 -“Search All Support and Downloads" is the default search choice. If browser cookies are enabled, the value selected will be saved for the next visit to the Support Portal.

Known issues:

Search does not function for any
query strings containing double byte characters.

Authenticated users who keep their
search results page open for more than 10 hours will be signed out
and prompted to sign in again.

Filtering search results by tag is unavailable in the Internet Explorer V8 browser.

Search does not respond for anonymous users using Internet Explorer who
have previously visited the "Service requests & PMRs" page during
their session.

The
“Service requests & PMRs” tab has been enhanced. The
following functionality has been added:

view
and search current Service requests

open
a new service request

view
and update service request profile information

view
service request messages

manage
authorized users and business partner information

Previously:

Current:

Users
will also find a cleaner interface. Several components have moved on
the page.

Links
for service requests for hardware, PC support, countries and recent
acquisitions have been moved to the left column.

Previously:

Current:

“Before
submitting a request” links have also moved.
Previously,
the “Before submitting a request” module appeared in the center
section of the page.Now,
a link to this module appears in the left column of the page, and on
November 29, 2012, this module will be found on the Troubleshooting
tab of the Support Portal.

Until
November 29, users can access the following links to obtain “Before
submitting a request” information:

IBM Support Portal R7.1 has been deployed.
Please visit the site at www.ibm.com/support.

Key updates include:

Inventory upload

User
interface enhancements

Support for additional English locales

Direct access from ibm.com/support for additional locales

Details:

Inventory upload

Authenticated users can upload inventories via the Support Portal.

In the “Find a product”
module, if an authenticated user selects the “Products for <user
name>” radio button and the “My inventories” selection in
the drop down, the user can select the “Upload new
inventory” link to upload an inventory file.

The ability to search by
machine type and model number is currently available. In R7.1, this
functionality is made more evident to users in instructional
text in the “Choose a product”, “Quick start” and “Find a
product” modules.

Link titles are
improved and based on the line length of the user's browser.

Link types are
clarified using the following updated and new icons.

Support
for additional English locales
Support has been added for
the English locales of Curacao, Kenya and Nigeria.

Direct
access from ibm.com/support for additional locales

Previously, users in the
following locales were directed to country specific support pages
when accessing ibm.com/support:

Australia
(English)

Brazil (English)

France (French)

Germany (German)

Ireland (English)

Italy (Italian)

Korea (Korean)

New Zealand (English)

Spain (Spanish)

United Kingdom (English)

These users are now taken directly to the Support Portal when accessing the technical
support site from ibm.com.

General
Comments:
Enhancement requests
implemented in this release include:

4175: Support should be
easily available by Machine type and model number.

Known issues:

Search results are limited to content in the language of the selected locale.

Search, including any links in the portal that involve searching, does not function for users who have a product containing an apostrophe in their product list.

IBM has deployed a new cutting edge search that utilizes powerful analytics to improve the user experience by providing highly relevant search results for each user query.

User benefits include:

More effective user search experience

Improved search producing more relevant results

Analytics to enable continual search improvements

.Search Philosophy:
Our new search philosophy is based on the following principles:

The use of analytics to intelligently classify documents and identify key topics/terms most appropriate for the user.

An improved technique to associate concepts and meanings with the words and phrases of a search query.

The ability to use dynamic rules to control and customize how the search engine processes various types of queries.

This innovative and powerful search engine is a joint project with IBM Research that utilizes many of the same technologies as the notable Watson system that won as the all-time champion on Jeopardy, a US television game show.

Details:
When searching from the Support home page or any task page, the following options appear below the search query box: “Within my selected products” and “All support & downloads”.

If “Within my selected products” is chosen, your search will be filtered against the products you have selected with a check mark on the “Choose a product” module.

If “All support and downloads” is chosen, your search will be performed against all IBM products.

If you prefer to find content for only one product, ensure you have selected only that product on the “Choose a product” module.

The default search option is “Within my selected products”. This option refines searches to content associated with your active products (the ones you currently have selected with a check mark).

The following graphic displays the options to further refine your search by Task, Content Type and Subject. The results list is dynamically refreshed as additional filter options are selected.

Selecting “Clear all” will remove the additional filter options and refresh the result list accordingly.

When the search result list displays, options are available to further refine or broaden your search by choosing to search “All support or downloads” or “Within my active products”. You may also change your filter options for Task, Content Type and Subject. These options can be seen in the following graphics.

When a
Serviceable Software Product appears in the "Find a product" selection
list, the blue "i" (information) icon appears beside the offering
name if the SSP is expandable.

Selecting the icon displays the list of products in the product offering.

Serviceable
Software Products are collections of software products that share
support content such as DB2 for z/OS which is a group of related tools.

Notification
subscription enhancement

Signed in users can quickly subscribe to
download and fix notifications in the "Downloads and fixes" and "Problem
resolution" modules.

This feature provides the ability to
subscribe to downloads and fixes for products the user is not currently
subscribed in My notifications.

Social Media tag display and search filtering

User
defined social media tags previously were displayed on the search results page, but could not be searched by keyword or filtered from the search
results page. Users can now filter on social media tags when
selecting "View All" or "More" results links within portlets.

Clicking on
the tag will search for other documents that contain the tag. Up
to five user-defined tags will display on filtered results list.

To remove a tag from the filtered list, select the [x] beside the search tag for the "x" beside "Remove all".

IBM Support Portal R6.0.1 has been deployed.
Please visit the site at www.ibm.com/support.

Key updates include:

Automatic operating system selection for some hardware products

Search results for both Plan and Install documentation now available

Link to the IBM Security Bulletins page

Details:

Automatic operating system selection for some hardware products
Users will no longer be prompted to choose an operating system for products
where the only selection is “All listed operating systems.”
R6.0:

Search results for both Plan and Install documentation now available
Results for both Plan and Install documentation are now available in the “Featured plan & install” module using the “Search results: All planning and installation...” link.

Link to the IBM Security Bulletins page
The “Flashes and alerts” modules on the “Support home,” “Downloads,” “Troubleshoot” and “Plan & install” pages now feature a “Latest security bulletins” link to the IBM Security Bulletins page.

Based on feedback from our users, we have implemented several enhancements to make it easier to find support information on
our site.Key updates include:

Product selection enhancements

Page simplification

Improved the visibility of the “Sign in” link

Updated layout of the “More results” pages

Simplified problem reporting

Fix Finder link

Improved site assistance

Mobile notifications support

Mobile Service request support

Details:

Product selection enhancements

For users who prefer to view only one product at a time in the Support Portal, an “Allow multiple selections” check-box has been added to the “Choose a product” module. De-selecting this check-box allows only one product to be active in the Support Portal at a time. Users can choose to make a different product active by using the radio buttons.
R5.2.1:
R6:

Using “Browse for a product,” users are able to select products based on inventories that have been previously uploaded to IBM.
Inventories can be uploaded either automatically via the Electronic Service Agent (ESA) that is available for numerous IBM hardware platforms, or manually via Fix Central or the IBM Support Assistant (ISA) tool. Additional details on uploading inventories to IBM can be found at http://www.ibm.com/software/support/portal/about-inventory.html.

Page navigation has been moved from a module in the left column of the portal to a tabbed interface at the top of the portal.
R5.2:
R6:

The “Planning” and “Installation” pages have been merged into one “Plan & install” page.

The “Usage” page has been eliminated. The content that once appeared on the "Usage" page now appears throughout other pages in the portal as well as in the “Product usage” module on the “Documentation” page.

Improved visibility of the “Sign in” link
The “Sign in” link now appears on a black background, making it more apparent.
R5.2:
R6:

Updated layout of the “More results” pages
The “More results” pages have been redesigned. The layout has been updated to make content easier to navigate and find.
R5.2:
R6:

Simplified problem reporting
Problem reporting has been simplified on the “Service requests & PMRs” page. The “IBM Service Request for software” module is now always available on this page for software support. And a new module, “Service Requests for hardware, PC support, countries and recent acquisitions,” is now available to direct users to the appropriate links for hardware, Lenovo and recent IBM acquisitions support.
R5.2:
R6:

Find fixes by inventory
Finding fixes and downloads has been simplified by a link in the portal to a Fix Central application that allows users to search for fixes and downloads based on inventory. Signed in users can find a link to this application for each active product that is supported by Fix
Central in the “Downloads and fixes” module.

Improved site assistance
IBM Support Portal Site assistance page now appears in a separate browser window enabling users to reference the site assistance while continuing to utilize the portal. In addition, the site assistance information has been revised and reorganized to better assist users in understanding how to use the site, and “Translate this page” can be used to view the content in any of the 10 languages supported by the dynamic translation function.
R5.2:
R6:

Russian language support
The Russian language is now supported in the dynamic translation function in right column area 'Translate this page.'

Mobile notifications support
Mobile users who are signed in and already subscribed to product notifications are now able to access product notifications in the mobile site.

Mobile Service request support
Mobile users who are signed in and already registered as an IBM Service Request for software user can now access their service requests via the mobile site.

General comments:

Enhancement requests implemented in this release include:

* 11567 - Make the sign-in link more obvious* 3410 - Enhance the usability of the "Service requests and PMRs" page

Known issues:

* The WebSphere Application Server product appears in two places in the product tree. It appears under the Tivoli brand as well as under the WebSphere brand. When the product appears in the URL of the portal, it will appear under the Tivoli brand.
* When you sign in, you may see some product names that are blanks or duplicates in your product list. Until a fix is available, delete the blank and duplicate product names.
* Information for PowerHA is currently unavailable. Work is underway to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.